What is a province? How foreign provinces differ from domestic ones?

The word "province" in Russian has several meanings, and because of this, its meaning to some people is not entirely clear. For example, what is a province in Russia? As a rule, this word has a somewhat derogatory, mocking meaning, and is associated with a small city or an urban-type settlement.

All that is not the capital

A resident of the capital of the Russian Federation will say that the province is "all that is not Moscow," and his friend from Peter will add to the definition of the mention of his native city. Although Moscow and inhabited mainly by residents of different "provinces", Muscovites believe that their home city "have come in large numbers," and the only right to live in the Russian capital is only the native Muscovite. Of course, this opinion is too chauvinistic to be reckoned with, so the so-called inhabitants of the provinces continue to gather in the huge city in search of happiness. In other cultures, the answer to the question "what is the province" is quite different, without some kind of disparaging or arrogant tone or suspicious overtones.

Province in history

Initially, this word denoted territories in ancient Rome, which were administratively subordinate to it and were located outside the Apennine peninsula. They were governed by the governors and in fact were considered foreign. To understand what a province is, one can turn to the Latin language. There is such an opinion that the word is derived from the Latin verb vincere, which means "take over what / anyone management," and the particle pro, which is "on behalf of". The whole Roman Empire was divided into such provinces , but Rome was still considered the central authority of each of them. At the same time, initially the word did not contain the semantics of a certain scale of the territory, because it meant a form of government rather than a kind of territorial unit. Perhaps, it is because of this difference between the former and modern interpretation and it is not clear to everyone what the province is. The definition is slightly blurry and depends on how you approach it: from a historical or geopolitical point of view.

We are so different, but still we are together

In today's world, many countries divide their territories into provinces. One of the most striking examples is Canada. Their functioning is very similar to the management of the United States of America: all Canadian provinces are subject to one general constitution, but they have the right to independently form local self-government bodies and to exist abstractly from the federal government. It is very simple to explain what the province of Canada is: it is a separate small state that obeys the laws common to the whole country, but has a large number of powers within its territory. For example, provinces can create their own laws, but they have no right to ignore those that are already included in the constitution. In Canada, there are Anglo- and French-speaking provinces, and some residents of French-speaking regions believe that French is being oppressed in Canada. This is strange, because Canada has adopted both languages as public.

Irish provinces and culture identity

Irish people also divide the territory of their country into provinces. They existed before, but at that time they were called toilets, which in Old Irish meant "people", "nation" or "tribe". As we can see, Ireland has retained its cultural identity to this day, although it preferred to pay tribute to fashion and call its toilets provinces. So, what is the province in the country of ethnic Celts and elves? Earlier in Ireland there were only five of them, but later a small Meath was included in the composition of Leinster. Thus, there were already four provinces in the territory of modern Ireland. They are not as different as in Canada, but a resident of a province can be identified by the characteristic accent or use of dialect words. The capital of Ireland, Dublin, is located in the province of Leinster, but the province of Munster is larger than its size.

The United States and the United Provinces

Another good way to uncover the notion of "province" is to explain what a state is. The province does not differ much from it, but for some reason a smaller part of the countries prefers to divide their territory into states. The most famous states are, of course, those located on the territory of North America. The US includes 50 states. Also this administrative unit exists in Australia, India, Brazil, Venezuela and some other countries. At the same time, the largest state is Texas (USA), home to almost 27 million people. In the United States, the origin of a person can be determined by its accent, in the same way as in the case of Canada or Ireland. Among Americans, there are a lot of jokes about cultural differences between residents of different states, but in general this nation can be called single, as the mentality of its citizens is almost the same.